BOOK REVIEW: The War Came to us: Life and Death in Ukraine

Author: Christopher Miller

Published by: Bloomsbury, London, 2023, 400pp, £20.20.

Many have weighed in with their comments about the Russo-Ukrainian War and their opinions about how it will or should end. However, there are far too few who understand the civic and historical context to suggest a viable resolution. People often have trouble believing that the genocidal carnage unleashed by invaders on their neighbours in Europe is even conceivable. Some revisionist foreign commentators and academics tend to think there must be something flawed about Ukraine that justified Russian aggression, and perceive accusations from Ukrainians against Russians to be exaggerated and surely prejudiced. The reality in Ukraine is that, in the words of Shakespeare in The Tempest, ‘hell is empty, and all the devils are here’, and they are Russians.

Christopher Miller is an unbiased Westerner who over the last fifteen years got to know Ukrainians as well as observed Russian deeds all over Ukraine. This lies at the heart of his message to the world in his book The War Came to Us, which is a collection of his reporting from the fighting fronts. As a foreign war correspondent, Miller has been to the most ravaged places and seen the utmost suffering and fortitude at the frontline, including during Ukraine’s darkest hours in 2022. This builds on his earlier experiences in 2014–15 reporting from both sides of the front in eastern Ukraine, from Crimea during its annexation by Moscow and from the heart of the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv. But before that, he got to know Ukrainians as an English teacher in peacetime Ukraine. Ukrainians are highly committed to democratic practice and pluralism. They used to be very tolerant of everything Russian, but were, and remain, a distinctively independent and proud nation. After a short history, and with a prologue dated 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the author fills 75 pages of the first part with a description of his life in the country and the people he met. This account covers 2009–12 — and is mainly reporting from Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern region, before turning to Kyiv in 2013. Miller starts by explaining how he, in his mid-twenties, looking forward to experiencing life in Africa as a volunteer, was sent to Ukraine instead. It was a country with which he had no pre-existing connections, nor knowledge of. He gives a very good introduction to Ukraine’s diverse and beautiful culture.

Miller then describes the people of Donbas, specifically in the town of Bakhmut, which became his ‘second home’ in Ukraine, including their characters and political views. Travelling extensively around the regions, learning the language (not Ukrainian first though, but Russian), he observes no trace of active separatist sentiments, neither radical nationalism nor intolerance, but rooted irritation towards politicians in power. Having failed to coerce Ukrainians into the ‘Russian World’, Putin resorted to aggression. The second part starts with a intense first-person account of the 2013–14 winter streets of Kyiv. He describes what began as the peaceful Euromaidan protest against Ukraine’s then-president’s last minute decision, under pressure from Putin, to scrap the partnership with the European Union. Government forces resorted to unprovoked violence against the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ and later slew more than a hundred protesters. Miller then rushes to Crimea to witness the unmarked ‘little green men’ (evidently regular Russian military) conducting an illegal annexation of the peninsula and its incorporation in the Russian World.

In 2014, as Russians invaded part of Ukraine’s Donbas region, Putin blatantly lied to the world. In the third part, Miller utilises his connections in Donbas and, as a foreign journalist, gets press credentials from both sides of the war that started in 2014. He learns about Russia’s special forces, which attempted coups in multiple administrative centres of eastern and southern regions of Ukraine and eventually started the war; about Russians in all the leadership roles of the sham republics; about Russian military equipment and regular forces on the ground. Miller endeavours to investigate the shooting down by Russian forces of Air Malaysia Flight MH17 in July 2014, confirming the first deaths of New Zealanders (among the passengers) in Ukraine. Also, Miller meets the commanders of Ukrainian voluntary battalions, which aided Ukraine’s regular army to fight back against Russia’s militia and regular forces, and explains how and why they formed. Along the way, he does not exclude from his reporting any personal views of the local population, who often find themselves conflicted about what is happening around them, being affected by Russian television propaganda, proximity or family links to Russia and lingering pro-Soviet sentiments.

The last part of the book covers the events of the largest military invasion in Europe since the end of the Second World War. It is a report about destruction, carnage and suffering inflicted by the Russian armed forces on Ukraine, but it is also the story of the stoicism and bravery of Ukrainians courageously fighting back against ‘Russian fascism’ (in Miller’s apt phrasing). Miller gives a good background to the invasion by describing the actions of the Ukrainian government and the mood amongst the people in the months preceding the warned-about invasion. There are insights into Ukrainian President Zelensky’s political story and personality.

After the invasion starts, Miller witnesses both the despair and resolve of common Kyivans protecting their families and aiding the defence efforts with whatever they can, the preparedness and wit of the military and the true heroism of immensely outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers. From the liberated territories, the author provides an account of heinous and unspeakable crimes conducted by ordinary Russians against the civilian Ukrainian population, talks to the survivors of excruciating experiences in Russian captivity and describes the siege of Mariupol — both the selflessness of the defenders and the tragedy of its population through kidnapping, inhuman filtration camps, deportations and indoctrination. Miller also writes about: the treason of the Kherson regional department of Ukraine’s Security Service in the south (which aided invading Russian forces); successful counter-offensives in the east; attending funerals in the west; witnessing the last days of his Bakhmut prior to its destruction; and living through Russia’s unabated terrorising of Ukrainian cities with destructive missiles and drones.

The War Came to Us is a first-person account of what is happening in Ukraine — the crisis of Russian fascism spilling into Europe and the remarkable spirit of the Ukrainian nation, which is paying in blood to protect the lives and future peace of not only Ukrainians but also Europeans.

KYRYLO KUTCHER